ANYONE who coaches, volunteers or any person who regularly has contact in any capacity with the children of St. James needs to meet the following Archdiocese requirements and be approved before you can begin coaching, volunteering, etc.

Anyone who was approved on the OLD CHILD PROTECTION PLAN will not be approved as of July 1, 2014. They will need to complete a VIRTUS Workshop and background check per the below requirements.

Requirements are:1) that you attend a "VIRTUS" Protecting God's Children Workshop and 2) that you have a background check through the new procedure.ALSO,as of July 1, 2014 anyone who has been approved through VIRTUS, but their fingerprints are 5 years old or more, will need to do the background check to keep your APPROVAL STATUS. You can complete this background check by going to your VIRTUS account, log in, go to the Toolbox tab, then to the Selection.com background check. This will cost $25.00, but you will not have to do it again no matter if you add or change locations, i.e. move or volunteer in a different parish, when a child enters high school etc. All you would need to do is to add or change your locations in your VIRTUS account. You can call the parish office to confirm your status and fingerprint date.

VIRTUS Bulletin requirement per the Archdiocese:

All persons who have attended a VIRTUS® Protecting God’s Children Training Session must keep up with the continuing education component of VIRTUS® by reading all monthly VIRTUS® Training Bulletins. If a person falls behind by three or more Bulletins (whether in consecutive months or not) he / she must “catch up.” If the same person does catch up, but then falls behind by three or more Bulletins a second time, the cleric, employee or volunteer will need to attend another VIRTUS® live Training Session before he / she can have further contact with children. The Office of Safe Environment will send out reminder e-mails on or about May 1, 2014 and again on or about June 1, 2014 to all persons who are three or more VIRTUS® Bulletins behind asking them to “catch up” with their reading. All persons who are still behind by three or more Bulletins as of July 1, 2014 will be suspended in VIRTUS®. No suspended person can have any contact with children until after he / she attends a new VIRTUS® live Training Session, has his / her VIRTUS® User Account reactivated, and then “catches up” with all previously unread Bulletins.

This will be an ongoing process, and will be checked monthly. It is not a onetime check. Reminder notices or letters may or may not be sent after July 1st. It is everyone’s responsibility to read the new bulletin each month whether they receive an email or not. It is available the 1st Sunday of each month so they should just mark their calendars.

Questions regarding the "VIRTUS" Class please call Theresa Hayes, DRE at 741-5335 or click on the chart below which may help answer some questions.

St. James the Greater - Protecting God's Children, VIRTUS Class Schedule 1. PreRegistration at the VIRTUS site listed above is required
2. St. James the Greater staff or parishioners will receive preference for registration
3. NO children due to content
4. NO late arrivals admitted

Schedule: Our upcoming Workshops are: February 11 and March 18 at 6 pm in the Marian Room. See the above PreRegistration link to register or for other locations and times.